Sunday, June 26, 2011

Galloway calls Rushdie a coward

Former politician George Galloway has issued a statement denouncing author Salman Rushdie as a "renegade" and "sneaky". Galloway's statement also challenged Rushdie to a debate, stating that a refusal would indicate that Rushdie lacks "moral fibre".

Salman Rushdie, one of the world's greatest living novelists, famously survived years in hiding after Iran's ruling clerics issued a death sentence for him, literally offering a massive bounty for his murder.

George Galloway, a former Member of Parliament, has worked on behalf of a number of brutal dictatorships, including those of Iran, Syria, Gaza and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the latter, allegedly, at Galloway's great personal benefit and in contravention of a British ban on doing business with Saddam's regime. Galloway has, for a number of years, worked as a broadcaster for Iran's state propaganda television station, Press TV.

It is bad enough that Galloway, a braggart, bully, liar and hater who works as a professional toady of tyrants should slander Salman Rushdie in this manner. But the gist of this recent comment arguably represents something far worse about him. Is it too much to ask that those who would serve in Britain's government not defend those who would murder its greatest artists?

Afterthought: A comment at Harry's Place rightly points out that, by "renegade", Galloway means to say that Rushdie is an apostate. The terms are both used to translate the Arabic term for what Muslim religious law considers a very serious crime, one which is commonly punishable by death. (Read more about that here.) As I see it, by using this term, Galloway implicitly argues in favor of the fatwa authorizing Rushdie's murder. He is saying that Rushdie did exactly what the ayatollahs accused him of.

Now, with that, lets take a walk down memory lane with video of Galloway praising some of of his friends.

He depends on sheer shamelessness to have any impact at all. He reminds me of those schoolyard basketball players from my youth who lacked skills at the game and depended on trash-talking and fighting to show their prowess. By making groundless charges against a great man, Galloway tries to shore up his own pride. In Galloway's mind, by lying about Rushdie, he becomes Rushdie's superior.

Galloway is nothing more than a schoolyard bully. This statement represents his ideology at it's most obvious.